Welcome to How Leaders Lead. I'm Kula Callahan here to bring you another edition of three more

questions with David Novak. David, it's derby season. We've got a fun conversation to dive into today.

Yeah, we just wrapped up the Kentucky Derby and, you know, it was exciting as usual, and I hope everybody out there picked

the winner. And today, we're debriefing my conversation with Bill Mud, the president and chief

operating officer of Churchill's Downs. This guy is all over his business into the detail, and he

has a big business to run and work through. And I really loved how he

thinks through the customer experience from the minute you get into the parking lot to the time

you leave. And I think everybody should be thinking about their customers in that way,

and then do the things that make them happy all along the way. One thing that I wasn't aware of going into this conversation is that Churchill Downs has a $10 billion market cap.

I mean, this is a gigantic organization.

And like you said, Bill Mudd is a guy who gets into the details to really understand his customers

and empowers his people every step of the way.

I'm excited to dive into today's questions, David. This is going to be a fun one.

All right. Let's go.

Question number one, and I got to ask it, David, you've been to over 20 Kentucky derbies.

What is your favorite derby story? Well, I have a couple. One is very

much in the traditional sense of just attending the Derby and having guests come in that are

really excited about it because believe me, if you have somebody to go to the Kentucky Derby,

they raise their hand in a hurry.

They can't wait to get there because it's basically on the bucket list for almost everybody that I know.

The traditional story I have is I was lucky enough to have Arnold Palmer as a guest.

And he is just a terrific guy.

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